Hi, just want to check/ask for any advice or tips to help develop DS’s speech.
He’s 16 months and still just mainly grunting, whining and pointing when he wants things. He CAN say a number of words (mama, dada, baba, nana, hiya, loads of animal sounds etc.) but he doesn’t communicate independently at all. He only says ‘Hiya’ unprompted randomly at people in the shops or on TV. He will make a ‘woof woof’ sound unprompted if he sees a dog and that’s about it. Everything else you need to ask him to say or make a noise for, and it’s hit or miss whether he’ll reply.
I know he understands loads because he’ll respond to instructions or we’ll be talking about something and he’ll react to it (e.g. ‘Who’s doing bathtime?’ And he’ll run to the bathroom door and start pointing and grunting). The problem is, he just isn’t speaking and would prefer to grunt and whine. I’ve tried ignoring him when he’s grunting and pointing and asking him to say a word instead but this just results in him getting extremely upset and frustrated and I don’t feel that’s helping him at all. I also talk to him all day long and model language as much as possible/narrate mine and his actions.
Is this normal? My mum tells me I was babbling away all the time at his age. How can I encourage him to grunt less and talk more?